Greenpeace has found a new campaign method. Recently, the environmental action group posed as a pro-coal organization to co-sponsor the 2008 McCloskey Coal usa conference, where it delivered an anti-coal message. Disguising its identity under the moniker Institute for Energy Solution, Greenpeace paid the us $8,500 co-sponsorship fee that made them publishers of the conference brochure. In the brochure, an ad for the fake institute seems pro-coal, but then it directs readers to a website, www.tomorrowsenergytoday.org, where they are redirected to www.coal-is-dirty.com.
"It's a lot of value for the money," said Carol Muffett, Greenpeace's spokesperson. When The McCloskey Group figured out who the Institute for Energy Solutions really were, they decided to let Greenpeace have their booth. The Greenpeace team handed out business cards that read: "The Institute for Energy Solutions is a joke. So is clean coal."
Muffett said Greenpeace merely copied a tactic used by industry, creating a benign-sounding but phony front to promote their position.
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